On Thursday, Ang, Tristan and I arrived in Houston. We had a very bumpy flight coming in because of all of the thunderstorms in the area. We met Steve Tartaglia at the airport before going to a gathering for Schumacher drivers and crew chiefs. We had a blast at the party. Tristan played Johnny West in chess and beat him. He was really excited. Tristan always talks about chess and always told me he was good at it. I believed him but when he beat Johnny I was like “WOW.”.

Friday was a crazy day as far as weather. The meteorologist was calling for rain all day. They said we had a window of about two hours that we could race. Bikes were scheduled to run at that time. When we got up to the line to make our passes it started to rain. They attempted three different times to run the bikes. We finally got the session in after about 30 minutes of waiting. We qualified No. 7 place and I was not happy. I knew I had a fast motorcycle and I know I can drive it to the No. 1 spot but we just didn’t make a good pass. The rain came again and we were done for the day.  We went out to dinner and back to the hotel. I had a lot on my mind because I was not happy with my performance.

Saturday was blistering COLD!! When we arrived at the track it was 800 feet below. I don’t know if all of you know what that means but that means go-fast conditions. It was almost too cold to race. The air temperature was in the 40s and the wind was gusty at about 30  mph. Not good for motorcycles. On our second pass Andrew Hines made a great pass to take the No. 1 spot. We stepped up a few positions with 6.99 but not enough for his 6.88. For the third pass we made a few changes but still improved our time. Our Nitrofish/DSR Suzuki went a 6.93. It was a good pass but we didn’t improve in position for race day.

Sunday was another cold day. Not as bad in the sun but still cold. First round of eliminations I didn’t want to go and push the Tree. I remember two years ago when everyone red lighted first round. I was a victim of that. I had that in my head and I left the starting line with a .150 light. That was absolutely horrible. I really can’t believe I won but I can tell you the only way I did is because Steve gave me the horsepower to win. I was really aggravated at myself and Steve came down to the end of the track to get me and all I did was apologize. He said it was alright and for me to just get it out of my head.  Second round I had an .021 light but that was not the highlight of the round. The highlight was my 6.865 @ 193mph. Words can’t describe what I felt when Gary Gerould told me that I set the national e.t. record.

I have been racing NHRA for four years and one thing I want to be known for is setting records. I was so happy that we as a team set the e.t. record. I will say it takes all of us on this team to do it. I want to say thank you to all the guys and Steve for working hard to get me an awesome bike. Third round I raced Craig Treble. We both ran 6.91s but his was a little faster. My crank trigger broke at 5.9 seconds into the run and we still went a 6.91. I was bummed that it broke and we didn’t win the round. I know we had the best bike we just didn’t have the luck. Another positive thing that came out of the race was we took the points lead. Last year I didn’t take the points lead until Atlanta. This year I am one race early and I will take it and happy with it.

I am very hungry to win a race. We have really shined with my new Nitrofish/DSR Suzuki team. I know we have the best bike out there. Our main objective for Atlanta is to WIN. Ang will be racing Atlanta also. We know she has a fast bike. I am happy that we have secured funding for her to race Atlanta but if we do not secure anymore funding then she will not race until the U.S. Nationals. The best scenario I would be happy with is Ang and I in the finals together. I don’t think it could be any better than that.